The area now occupied by The Disney Gallery was intended to serve as a private apartment for Disney family members, sharing a kitchen with Club 33. After Walt died in 1966 the apartment plan was scrapped, and the space was used for offices until The Disney Gallery opened in 1987.

Various origins are claimed for the name Club 33 — everything from the official explanation that the club was named after its 33 Royal Street address to the notion that Walt picked the name simply because he liked the way the number '33' looked to the claim that the club was named in honor of Disneyland's original thirty-three participants (park sponsors and lessees).

Club 33 was intended as a place where Walt would entertain friends and business associates,
but Walt died before the club was finished.

Because Club 33 is the only place within Disneyland where alcohol is served, a tale has arisen that the club was given its own address so that a liquor license could be obtained for it. This is not true. All of the buildings on Main Street and Royal Street have their own addresses (for example, the Blue Bayou restaurant, adjacent to Club 33, occupies 31 Royal Street), and these addresses are purely internal park designations with no official status outside of Disneyland. The address listed on Club 33's liquor license is Disneyland's general delivery address on West Street.

The phone booth in the upstairs hallway is a reproduction of the one used in the film The Happiest Millionaire, and it contains a working telephone. Club guests are permitted to make free calls from this booth.

Despite lingering rumors, the Trophy Room no longer houses (functional) hidden microphones and speakers, although they were indeed installed when the club was built. Their planned function was not to allow Walt Disney (or the Club 33 staff) to eavesdrop on guests' conversations — to do so would have meant that Walt and/or the staff would have had to spend their evenings sitting in the tiny audio control booth adjacent to the Trophy Room. The primary intent of the speaker/microphone system was to allow Wally Boag (star of Disneyland's "Golden Horseshoe Revue" for many years) to entertain Walt's club guests on special occasions by conversing with them through the mechanism of an audio-animatronic bird. The Trophy Room was also wired to support a variety of other audio-animatronic animals (such as raccoons), but these plans were never implemented.

Club 33 has about 400 members, and the waiting time for memberships is approximately 2-3 years.